forget politics and join the movement

drunken_munky52

The elite power systems are little affected in the long run by traditional protest and political movements. We must move beyond these 'establishment rebellions' and work with a tool much more powerful:
We will stop supporting the system, while constantly advocating knowledge, peace, unity and compassion. We cannot "fight the system". Hate, anger and the 'war' mentality are failed means for change, for they perpetuate the same tools the corrupt, established power systems use to maintain control to begin with.

Find out more on the goal of the movement at the following address

http://www.thezeitgeistmovement.com/joomla/index.php?Itemid=50

Kama

Unless you wish to discuss theoretical political issues raised by 'the movement', this sub-forum is probably the wrong place for your post, and it will most likely end up in Conspiracy Theory.

I for one welcome our new techno-utopian cybernated overlords and their omnipotent domination of human societies; others will not acquiesce as easily.

drunken_munky52

Kama wrote: »

Unless you wish to discuss theoretical political issues raised by 'the movement', this sub-forum is probably the wrong place for your post, and it will most likely end up in Conspiracy Theory.

How is the my previous text Conspiracy Theory?

There are no "theoretical political issues" raised by the movement and thats the point. Its goal is to get the human race to abandon the notion that we need politics, money and laws.

Lets start the debate so... and please dont brand me a conspiracy theorist, nutjob, misinformed, etc. We can easily live in a world without Obamas, Cowens, Hitlers, etc, yet we always give these idiots power they misuse again and again... and what do we do? We sit back on our couches, huff and puff at them on the TV screens... its time to abandon these outdated structures and transcend the current system.

Kama wrote: »

I for one welcome our new techno-utopian cybernated overlords and their omnipotent domination of human societies; others will not acquiesce as easily.

Thats another good point; others will not acquiesce as easily. This is the biggest barrier to be broken down. It can be acheived with a chess game like stratagy... this of course must begin with a critical mass of society buying into the idea, thus creating a chain reaction throughout. Anyone who still does not buy into this new world will be a minority eventually.

Kama

I probably shouldn't encourage this sort of thing

I'll be harshly rebuked for drawing the sub-forum into inefficience, by our resident cybernate overlords. Their computational Justice shall no doubt be swift and Turing-complete.

I, in my wetware-limitations, may be fallible, yet they never err.

How is the my previous text Conspiracy Theory?

Simple Answer:
It links to Zeitgeist. This, alone, will make almost anyone flag it as 'Conspiracy Theory'.


More Pedantic Answer:

There was a saying about 'conspiracy theory' once, that it was 'lay theory', which is to say undeveloped and naive...Zetigeist fits the bill here, with an unwieldy attempt at the synthesis of the Gnostics (from Elaine Pagels et al), opposition to fractional reserve lending, the American 'conspiracy theory' tradition of the 'New World Order' and global government, New Age spiritualist concepts, and 911 Truth,with a almost-Kurzweilian faith in the abilities of AI to solve the allocation problem, and assert final closure to the field of political discourse.

It fits within the rubric of conspiracy theory as it argues that there is an elite political-economic conspiracy, the System, which is dominating our minds. Such views are not unique; Marxist or 'critical' ideological readings, and the Baudrillardian concept of 'code' have similarities, but in more simpler terms whenever someone disagrees with an opponent but cannot make a argument that is rationally communicable, they tend to accuse the opponent of being 'brainwashed', 'misled' by a total media complex, and so on. This rhetoric is found at all ends of ideologies.

The dominant themes of 'invasion' and 'control' seem symptomatic of paranoid inclinations; fantasies of threatening, controlling forces entering and manipulating are common to such experiences. The 'splitting' or Spaltung of an evil cadre versus a good everyone else is a classically paranoid-schizoid one; denial of blame to the self, and projection of blame into a 'bad container', allowing the paranoid to consider themselves pure. This is especially common in 'New Age' theories; the essentially purity and innocence of the Self requires for absolute evil to be located externally.

The convenience of 'conspiracy theory' is precisely within this 'anti-political' move; problems exist because there are Bad People out there, prototypically the Jews, and the problems of the world are due not to human fallibility and imperfections, miscommunications, and contingent chance, but a directed and malevolent force that seeks to keep people in ignorance and a state of control. As Zizek pointed out, the truly unacceptable horror would not be a cabal of Skull and Bones Satanists running the world, but far more monstrous than that: no ones hand is on the helm.

please dont brand me a conspiracy theorist, nutjob, misinformed, etc.

Not attempting to. I'm been a 'conspiracy theorist' myself, more or less, for just under 20 years, was psychologically a 'New Ager' for about 5, have lived in non-monetary intentional communities, was Gnostic-inclined for a while, and so on. So my criticism is kinda internal. What I find peculiar in Zeitgeist is its symmetry with Dan Brown: a lot of pre-existing ideas that had been floating around, put together in an easily-consumed form. The problem is, if you want to convince large numbers of people, you overstate your surety, and oversimplify your message. At which point it becomes propaganda.

I am implying with the reference to CT that if you don't want to talk politics, even the politics of being anti-politics, you're in the wrong place. There won't be a debate, even with me. If you are trying to 'consciousness-raise', you're definitely in the wrong forum; if, however, you wish to discuss these issues, and are prepared to subject them to reasoned critique, then continue on.

There are no "theoretical political issues" raised by the movement and thats the point.

If so, then this post is in the wrong forum, and will be moved. If you wish to continue to discuss it here, I'd advise you to examine this system of belief for political content that you may not have noticed. It has been said that 'fish have no word for water'; similarly, in ideological terms, we tend to miss the properly-political issues by designating them 'not political'.

More appropriately to this forum, however, the praxis that is advised (refusing the legitimacy of the System in its entirety) is a radical political statement, and a revolutionary one. Asserting the revolution from a predominantly liberal-democratic property system to one based on a equitable, need-based, non-monetary, command economy, AI-assisted technocracy is a political aspiration.

Anyone who still does not buy into this new world will be a minority eventually.

Which leads to the inevitably question for any ideology with totalitarian aspirations; what is to happen to those who refuse to be 'assimilated' into the borganism? Shall they be 're-educated'? In camps, perhaps? Pour encourager les autres?

Zetigeist, as well as a now highly-successful commercial enterprise, is moving towards being a political 'movement', in a populist or anti-elitist vein. If you are serious about it, as an activist, it would be wise to examine the political principles for which you are standing, albeit apparently unknown to yourself.

drunken_munky52

Kama wrote: »

If so, then this post is in the wrong forum, and will be moved. If you wish to continue to discuss it here, I'd advise you to examine this system of belief for political content that you may not have noticed. It has been said that 'fish have no word for water'; similarly, in ideological terms, we tend to miss the properly-political issues by designating them 'not political'.

Is it not the case that lack of an ideolgy in effect and ideolgy itself? You could draw the Ziegeist Movement as a far left socialist/communist idelogy, yet I, along with nearly a million others so far have a conviction about their message. This thread should be in the topic of political theory as it challanges the foundation of the political establishment, however non-engaged with politics itself, it should not be ignored... people need to hear this message.

Kama wrote: »

More appropriately to this forum, however, the praxis that is advised (refusing the legitimacy of the System in its entirety) is a radical political statement, and a revolutionary one. Asserting the revolution from a predominantly liberal-democratic property system to one based on a equitable, need-based, non-monetary, command economy, AI-assisted technocracy is a political aspiration.

It is quite hard as I am sure you can picture, to illustrate to people this message and what its actaully meant for. The ZM are not trying to be revolutionary, they are just trying to tell people that the world we live in today is flawed for various reasons and gets to the root causes. i.e. division, elitism, greed. Which as the quite correctly show, are issues which have other root causes. i.e religion, money, etc. They propose a resource based economy where everyone in the world has abundance. Also, the thing I love most about their message is the fact that "technology" solves problems, not laws that are used as firemen to tackle an issue which goes back to a root cause. Tough a world like they propose may seem imperfect, I am convinced that it would be far better than the world we live in today.

Kama wrote: »

Which leads to the inevitably question for any ideology with totalitarian aspirations; what is to happen to those who refuse to be 'assimilated' into the borganism? Shall they be 're-educated'? In camps, perhaps? Pour encourager les autres?

Exactly, but not in camps or hospitals. Once these leftovers from the world we know today attempt to fight this new world, they will quickly realise that the tables have been turned and now they have to play by someone elses rules to survive. They would have no choice, but they would not be punished for it.

Kama wrote: »

Zetigeist, as well as a now highly-successful commercial enterprise, is moving towards being a political 'movement', in a populist or anti-elitist vein. If you are serious about it, as an activist, it would be wise to examine the political principles for which you are standing, albeit apparently unknown to yourself.

ZM principles remain the same as they did when they first started. The reason I think you say they a moving towards a "political movement", is becuase of the current climate we find ourselves in today. Normal people are obviously upset losing their jobs and when they see that fat cat culture still prospers, they understandably become anti-rich, thus this anger is now virusing itself to the ZM and watering down its legitimate message.

In regards to myself, I am still on a rollercoaster with my political agenda...

The one quetion that annoys me most is: How can I turn my back on politics when nobody is with me? For me, my aim for now is to try get as many people on board with me so I do not feel ostrichsized.

nyarlothothep

Society needs laws as the coding which ensures peoples welfare and personal liberties. Granted laws are passed which abuse these rights and existing ones are exploited for personal gain but to say a society can function without laws is just plain naive and fails to account for the darker aspects of human nature.

On money, well thats open for debate but I err on the side that we need a representational system for labour hours worked. How that system functions, whether for the benefit of the elite or for a communal working system is another issue.

Politics is an inevitable product of human existence and indeed for many animals and even insects like ants.

These three things you mentioned can be used for good or bad, for self gain or for the benefit of the many, but to say that they can all be swept away in the creation of a euphoric new utopia is totally misguided. There is no one simple catch all solution to the problems endemic in human society. It is a painful evolution, hopefully grasping towards a better future, as it has done up till now but there is no quick fix answer. The input/output law of the universe would determine that.

In addition how are you any better in your suppositions than the very elitists you seek to overthrow when you say something like this

"Once these leftovers from the world we know today attempt to fight this new world, they will quickly realise that the tables have been turned and now they have to play by someone elses rules to survive. They would have no choice, but they would not be punished for it."

This isn't any different from what they do. If such an order were to exist it would just perpetuate the cycles of unjustified power that have existed since the dawn of man.

drunken_munky52

nyarlothothep wrote: »

Society needs laws as the coding which ensures peoples welfare and personal liberties. Granted laws are passed which abuse these rights and existing ones are exploited for personal gain but to say a society can function without laws is just plain naive and fails to account for the darker aspects of human nature.

Granted, we need coding for behavior. Laws are only deterents, they do not address the underlying reasons why crime occurs in the first place. A society built on abandunce shared equally among the populous, would eliminate 99% of crime, becuase most crime is commited out of the fact that scarcity exists. This means that in theory 99% of criminals are deep down, decent animals. They have just ended up bad apples becuase of root social causes or part of a vicious cycle.

nyarlothothep wrote: »

On money, well thats open for debate but I err on the side that we need a representational system for labour hours worked. How that system functions, whether for the benefit of the elite or for a communal working system is another issue.

Labour I believe should be solely focussed on:
1. Engineering our ways out of problems
2. Engineering automated machines to free humans from having to work at all

On the second point, I refer to the "resource based economic system" proposed by Zeigeist. It has stated and I believe, that we are currently at the stage of technological evolution to accelerate into a chore free society. All the great benefits include, freeing our minds for what is really important to the human spirit. e.g. family, soul, etc

nyarlothothep wrote: »

Politics is an inevitable product of human existence and indeed for many animals and even insects like ants.

Nature has provided us with a higher level of intelligence for a reason. Given our conscious capability, we are able to transcend the norms of nature.

nyarlothothep wrote: »

These three things you mentioned can be used for good or bad, for self gain or for the benefit of the many, but to say that they can all be swept away in the creation of a euphoric new utopia is totally misguided. There is no one simple catch all solution to the problems endemic in human society. It is a painful evolution, hopefully grasping towards a better future, as it has done up till now but there is no quick fix answer. The input/output law of the universe would determine that.

Agreed with you. Its not perfect and it would take time. Hell, just me talking about it here is probobly the beginning. But realise that resource based society is far better than what we have now.

In a world where 1% of the population owns 40% of the planet's wealth…in a world where over 30,000 children die every single day from the effects of poverty and preventable diseases one thing is clear:
Something is very wrong.

nyarlothothep wrote: »

In addition how are you any better in your suppositions than the very elitists you seek to overthrow when you say something like this

"Once these leftovers from the world we know today attempt to fight this new world, they will quickly realise that the tables have been turned and now they have to play by someone elses rules to survive. They would have no choice, but they would not be punished for it."

This isn't any different from what they do. If such an order were to exist it would just perpetuate the cycles of unjustified power that have existed since the dawn of man.

Yes, exactly. What I should have been able to illustrate to you, and you did get it, you just didn't use what you said as a constructive tool. You said "If such an order were to exist it would just perpetuate the cycles of unjustified power that have existed since the dawn of man." Thats how easy it is to make the change. Man is easily programmable, so I just proposed using the human instinct for survival for a good cause. Just becuase "they" use it, does not mean I am also evil for exploiting this certainty in human behavior.

AnotherYou

I came on here to do exactly that what you've done here drunken_munkey.


However, I think I'll just sit and listen quietly after this one as it seems someone has busted out their thesaurus and is really making a go of it.

Good luck, I'll wait on the sidelines for the mo!

Ostrom

drunken_munky52 wrote: »

Also, the thing I love most about their message is the fact that "technology" solves problems, not laws that are used as firemen to tackle an issue which goes back to a root cause. Tough a world like they propose may seem imperfect, I am convinced that it would be far better than the world we live in today.

The technological optimist debate has long been put to rest in ecological economics by Georgescu-Roegen. Limits to growth aside, it is still irresponsible guesswork - entropy, etc.

drunken_munky52 wrote: »

Exactly, but not in camps or hospitals. Once these leftovers from the world we know today attempt to fight this new world, they will quickly realise that the tables have been turned and now they have to play by someone elses rules to survive. They would have no choice, but they would not be punished for it.

What kind of people will they be? The leftover obsolete 'elites'? The overthrown government? Industrialists? Middle class? Working poor? Like all similar totalitarian inclined, you seem to have conferred the moral authority upon yourself, at the expense of the (impossibly) class conscious leftovers. Is the ZM unconcerned with consensus rule? How will the transition work in practice? Is there any historical or contemporary mode of production to draw comparison?

drunken_munky52 wrote: »

The one quetion that annoys me most is: How can I turn my back on politics when nobody is with me? For me, my aim for now is to try get as many people on board with me so I do not feel ostrichsized.

If I am understanding you correctly, this wont be a problem once the militant minority are in place (based on the quote below)

drunken_munky52 wrote: »

Thats another good point; others will not acquiesce as easily. This is the biggest barrier to be broken down. It can be acheived with a chess game like stratagy... this of course must begin with a critical mass of society buying into the idea, thus creating a chain reaction throughout. Anyone who still does not buy into this new world will be a minority eventually

Kama wrote: »

I, in my wetware-limitations, may be fallible, yet they never err.

I'll raise your (other thread) occasional Schumpeterianism with '...formulating with unsurpassed force that feeling of being thwarted which is the auto-therapeutic attitude of the unsuccessful many', socialistic deliverance and all. Creative destruction is not limited to the concrete business cycle.

Kama

I, like you, believe in the possibility of an 'economy of abundance', but its not sufficient to say 'do away with money and roll out the superintelligent machines and it'll all be grand'. All economies are already 'resource-based', and many of our problems come drawing down this resource base. The God-machines will require more resources to produce, more energy, which is an input that is already scarce.

Specifically, the abolition of money leaves no way of determining how scarce goods are allocated, or on what basis the UberCray supercomputers make this need-based allocation. Who gets to program the machines (assuming the lack of a perfectly benevolent post-Singularity AGI), again, is a political question. Who gets what, when, and why?

Ironically, for an ecological-egalitarian, the proposed system looks more like a distrorted fantasy of the present day than a future; a cybernetic technocratic domination of the world, moving faster towards ecological breakdown, with a Cornucopian faith that 'tech' will necessarily provide the efficient-and-therefore-right 'solution' to the nagging problem of humanity.

bonkey

drunken_munky52 wrote: »

In a world where 1% of the population owns 40% of the planet's wealth…in a world where over 30,000 children die every single day from the effects of poverty and preventable diseases one thing is clear:
Something is very wrong.

I agree entirely.

Here's something to consider though*

Given the current world population, the average American consumes something like 12 times their fair share of resources. The average European consumes something like 5 times their fair share of resources. Ireland falls somewhere in between the two.

So, lets not get hung up on the super rich. If you are an average European consumer, how much of your consumption are you willing to give up? Will you give up half of what you have? That will only put you at 2.5 times your fair share? Give up 80% of what you have, and that puts you in a fair position.

If you have a decent job (or your parents, if you're not independant), then odds are you're over the average...so you could be looking at more like 90% of what you have.

This is the cold hard truth.

While its convenient to point fingers at the ultra-rich and say that they should lose loads in order to build a fairer world, when we start looking at a truly fair world, then almost everyone campaigning for such a thing will have to make significant sacrifices as well. Everyone they're trying to bring to their cause...they need them to be willing to give away the lions share of what they own, of what they earn, and of what they consume.

We never heard this story, though. We hear about how there's something wrong about how the ultra-rich 1% own 40%, but not how the comparatively-well-off 20% own well over 95%. You (whoever you are, reading this) are almost certainly in that 20%, regardless how hard done by you feel in life.

You want fairness in the world? How much will you give up to have that?

Ultimately, you're asking people who are part of the global elite to join a campaign to do away with the advantages they have.

Alternately, you're asking people to join a campaign to implement a still-unfair-but-better-for-me movement....which kind of justifies the existing system when you think about it.



*The figures are taken from memory, but aren't orders of magnitude out.

Kama

This is quite helpful for perspective on ones position within the world system of inequality...

Global Rich List

bonkey

Having played with that a bit...

It puts an annual income of 37,780 EUR at being in the top 1%.
THat would be just shy of €3150 a month.

silverharp

it doesnt come down to pure resources either, the idea that any problems could be solved if every global citizen was given a debit card with their share of the global production of every conceivable natural resource would not work. Although resources are scarce , it still takes the network of culture education and expertise and accrued capital to convert these resources into useful goods and services.

drunken_munky52

efla wrote: »

The technological optimist debate has long been put to rest in ecological economics by Georgescu-Roegen. Limits to growth aside, it is still irresponsible guesswork - entropy, etc.

My advocation for technology is to have it create the benefits while still respecting the environment. In fact, technologies have already been created to protect the the earth, but as I have said, ecological damage has a root cause, which needs to be either discontinued or simply the process for doing the same thing needs to be approached differently. This planet does not belong to us only, the animals own it as much as we do. We should be respectful of them in this light.

efla wrote: »

Like all similar totalitarian inclined, you seem to have conferred the moral authority upon yourself, at the expense of the (impossibly) class conscious leftovers.

You have misunderstood my metaphor. I am not for a second stating any totalitarian control aspirations. I mearly say that the nay sayers of such a proposal would have to come to a realisation that the system we live in today is flawed in so many ways. In fact, I think that all of the sceptics would jump on the band wagon without any sort of intervention, once they see the freedom of the soul that can be achieved.

efla wrote: »

How will the transition work in practice? Is there any historical or contemporary mode of production to draw comparison?

All empires crumble do they not? The system we are in right now is basically the corporate empire of profit, and like all empires will fall someday too. And when it does, we need to be ready... but why wait? The ZM proposes a new approach, with the fundamentals been based on equality, abuandance and vorsprung durch technik. Nothing like this has ever been tried before on the scale proposed... I strongly believe it is worth a shot at testing... it would be not even a blink in the eye of human evolution, and anyway we are at such a level of consciousness that anticipation of tripping blocks can be easily worked out.

Kama wrote: »

The God-machines will require more resources to produce, more energy, which is an input that is already scarce.

Earth recieves more energy from the sun in 1 hour that the entire planet uses in 1 year. And thats just from solar. Wind energy is in such abundance that if it were fully harnessed in a handful of wind resource rich location around Europe, it would be enough to power the entire continent. But one energy source trumps them all, "Geothermal". That is something you can look up yourself.

Kama wrote: »

Specifically, the abolition of money leaves no way of determining how scarce goods are allocated, or on what basis the UberCray supercomputers make this need-based allocation. Who gets to program the machines (assuming the lack of a perfectly benevolent post-Singularity AGI), again, is a political question. Who gets what, when, and why?

Computers could constantly monitor the Earth's resources and percisely allocate to a region that needs X amount of Y material. You do know I am not on about a barter system when I talk about resource based economics in this sense?

Kama wrote: »

Ironically, for an ecological-egalitarian, the proposed system looks more like a distrorted fantasy of the present day than a future; a cybernetic technocratic domination of the world, moving faster towards ecological breakdown, with a Cornucopian faith that 'tech' will necessarily provide the efficient-and-therefore-right 'solution' to the nagging problem of humanity.

Why did a stone age man decide he needed a wheel one day? He did it becuase he had a problem moving a load from A to B. The wheel is the most important piece of technology ever. There lies the issue. Technology solves problems not politicians. Politicians are not engineers. Politicians are not scientists.

bonkey wrote: »

While its convenient to point fingers at the ultra-rich and say that they should lose loads in order to build a fairer world

I never pointed my fingers at anyone to be honest. But if you want me the point one, I will do so... not a the millionaire up on the hill from you... not the hard working airline boss with his self obsessed ego... not even the Bill Gates of this world or the house or Saud... you guessed it... the central banking system of the world. Becuase at the end of he day, in todays world we the people including our little sawdust millionaires are nothing more than paid slaves and work for the banks. Its about time we rejected our secret masters.

bonkey wrote: »

Ultimately, you're asking people who are part of the global elite to join a campaign to do away with the advantages they have.

Alternately, you're asking people to join a campaign to implement a still-unfair-but-better-for-me movement....which kind of justifies the existing system when you think about it.

You are reffering to materialsim and social class, which are no benefits to mankind over all. Its all well and do when we watch movies on our 52" plasma TVs and where nice designer clothes, paying a fortune to use them in the process, not thinking about the person in the swetshop who made the product for you in the most uncomfortable condtions and getting less than 0.1% of the money you paid for the finished product.

People need to realise that consumerism is built on the broken spirits of millions of the poor.

Its time to tip to scales.

silverharp wrote: »

it doesnt come down to pure resources either, the idea that any problems could be solved if every global citizen was given a debit card with their share of the global production of every conceivable natural resource would not work. Although resources are scarce , it still takes the network of culture education and expertise and accrued capital to convert these resources into useful goods and services.

Resources are not scarce... deliberately misleading information is put out there to create the illusion of scarcity as this drives up the cost of everything... what about the resources that have been wasted into products we dont even need... they could be easily recycled , hence the material can be used for X practical purpose.

Kama

In fact, I think that all of the sceptics would jump on the band wagon without any sort of intervention, once they see the freedom of the soul that can be achieved.

Well you've lost the atheists for starters. The question remains, how would you respond to atavistic remnants of the 'old society' who have not reached the appropriate level of socio-spiritual development?

Earth recieves more energy from the sun in 1 hour that the entire planet uses in 1 year. And thats just from solar. Wind energy is in such abundance that if it were fully harnessed in a handful of wind resource rich location around Europe, it would be enough to power the entire continent. But one energy source trumps them all, "Geothermal". That is something you can look up yourself.

For the first part, there is a difference between 'receives' and 'can capture'. The there's the small matter of the EROI, which I recommend you look up, the energy necessary as an investment to produce further energy, and then the conversion efficiency. Then there's the issue of getting power from generation sites to consumption sites. 'Deep' geothermal isn't developed yet; easy for Iceland, hard for other places. The main mistake you are making here continuously is assuming that total physical potential can be easily converted into an available source of power. Science and technology are constrained by physical limits; its not just that we want something and science provides, automatically. This is called a wish-fulfilment fantasy.

Computers could constantly monitor the Earth's resources and percisely allocate to a region that needs X amount of Y material. You do know I am not on about a barter system when I talk about resource based economics in this sense?

Again, how are these computers programmed, and who programs them? What models are used, what algorithm do they apply, to solve the allocation problem? If you lack an answer, don't be surprised if you are not taken seriously when you say 'computers'. How you determine the 'X' that is needed is a non-trivial question.

Why did a stone age man decide he needed a wheel one day? He did it becuase he had a problem moving a load from A to B. The wheel is the most important piece of technology ever. There lies the issue. Technology solves problems not politicians. Politicians are not engineers. Politicians are not scientists.

Um, Stone Age civilizations didn't invent the wheel, for starters, despite what the Flintstones may tell you; earliest record is the Mesopotamians. Question: are you a scientist? Do you think technology ever creates problems?

Resources are not scarce... deliberately misleading information is put out there to create the illusion of scarcity as this drives up the cost of everything... what about the resources that have been wasted into products we dont even need... they could be easily recycled , hence the material can be used for X practical purpose.

There's a question which I find interesting hidden within this. Resources are scarce, in the sense that we are not making more oil anytime soon (unless Venter cracks it with the algae). The subtler point would be how do our economic processes thrive on and reproduce scarcity as a means to create value; is this what you mean?

Resources being wasted does not mean they are not scarce; you implicitly accept the concept of 'cost' as being 'driven up', so you already accept a concept of scarcity...that or you still have residual System-programming...

Scarce, btw, to an economist, means limited or finite, rather than just 'not a lot of', and is compared to the (theorized) infinity of human desire. So we could have a huge pile of shiny gold, but gold is still technically a scarce good, because there is no shortage of people who want gold. Now, if no one wanted gold, because they had had the 'spiritual conversion', the demand side would change, and we might say gold was no longer truly scarce. This demand-side approach has been pushed by the ecological side, or 'living lightly'.

But to claim that we have infinite resources on earth is just incoherent. Physics is not your friend. Start with thermodynamics, and go from there, would be my advice.

To be truly post-scarcity in the manner you describe would require free energy, aka over-unity. Crack that, and you may be taken seriously - or shot by an oil company, or bought out by Steorn...

Kama

There's a view, related to ecological economics, of what a 'resource-based economy' would look like. The word 'resource' comes from the Latin resurgere, meaning 'to rise again'. Its the origin of the Enlish word 'resurgent'.

In this view, resources are replenishing sources. By not drawing down more than the 'interest rate' at which they grow, an economy based off these flows can be growing continuously off the proceeds. However, we tend not to do this; in some cases (oil) the time for it to replenish dwarfs our societies likely lifespan, while in others (forestry, fishing) we have tended to 'mine' the resource into extinction. Which is clearly suboptimal longterm, though it makes a lot of sense in short-term rationalities.

I'm quite in favour of a resource-based economy in this sense, btw. Increasing our share of solar capture with dense, diversified ecologies, and drawing down a sustainable level of this resource base, above the restock rate.

But as the man said, if you want to get to Galway, I wouldn't start from here...

drunken_munky52

Kama wrote: »

Well you've lost the atheists for starters. The question remains, how would you respond to atavistic remnants of the 'old society' who have not reached the appropriate level of socio-spiritual development?

Why would I lose the atheists? And I suppose the nay sayers of our thwarted era, would just have to live with it. You could easily use the model of the fake "Democracy" we live in today... when a majority get in the minority are not heard... that does not mean I would have them sent to death camps... the incentives of inclusion would be presented, along with obvious education on the new world would reinforce its simple objective. If they still refuse, well then I cant force someone to eat if they are on hunger strike... what would you propose? Maybe put them on an island so they can live in lalaland for the rest of their lives... or would you atleast try to get them with the program?

Kama wrote: »

-For the first part, there is a difference between 'receives' and 'can capture'.
- Then there's the issue of getting power from generation sites to consumption sites.
- 'Deep' geothermal isn't developed yet; easy for Iceland, hard for other places.
-The main mistake you are making here continuously is assuming that total physical potential can be easily converted into an available source of power. Science and technology are constrained by physical limits; its not just that we want something and science provides, automatically. This is called a wish-fulfilment fantasy.

Lets forget about the monetary issues which falsely discourage such ideas... this fake barrier needs to be ignored if we are to have the abundance of energy I speak of.
You focus on the current limitations of the proposals, yet I note you don't say they are impossible. As time moves on, new breakthroughs will be made in finding ways to solve the issues you state. It is inevitable. Look at how fast we have come in 20 years of the computing world. Nothing is impossible.
Science and technology are constrained by their own discovered laws... what person has ever proved that they are constrained by physical limits?
Wish-fulfilment fantasy? "They" said we wouldn't put a man on the moon. What do "they" know?

Kama wrote: »

Again, how are these computers programmed, and who programs them?

I will give you one simple answer to all of the questions asked on this paragraph, and that is with replacing the Dail seats with the brainiest minds in the world, solutions can be found... again, nothing is theoretically impossible, all is has to do is obey the laws of science... not the physical constraints.

Kama wrote: »

Um, Stone Age civilizations didn't invent the wheel, for starters, despite what the Flintstones may tell you; earliest record is the Mesopotamians. Question: are you a scientist? Do you think technology ever creates problems?

Bash my metaphor why dont you... I dont care who built it, fact of the matter is that it was built out of nessecity to overcome a major obstacle to an idea in a mans mind. Yes I am a scientist and yes technology is raped for mindless acts everyday... most notably the military.... an utter waste of talent and resources on ways to kill people... another aim of the ZM is to rid the world of this outdated institution.

Two things you can use technology for are
1. Constructive use
2. Destructive use

When creating constructive use technologies you may end up having some destructive run off... technology therefore should be applied in minmising destructive run off... AKA technology for creating technology.

Q: Do you drive a car? If so, why do you drive a car? What are the advantages of driving a car over walking or on horse back?

Kama wrote: »

we are not making more oil anytime soon

Yes, the oil age is coming to a end, just like the stone age, iron age etc. Why so serious? I would not lose sleep over it, we are on the verge of a green revolution. As for the polymer industries, they will go into recycling the polymer materials locked up in the computer you use right now
, or the rubber on the tires of your car. Good riddance to oil anyway, it has served us well in 200 years at an enormous cost... the most ecological damaging resource ever used by humans in history.

Kama wrote: »

Resources being wasted does not mean they are not scarce; you implicitly accept the concept of 'cost' as being 'driven up', so you already accept a concept of scarcity.

Let me use the diamond industry as an example.

Diamonds are not as rare as many people think. They are certainly not the rarest of gemstones, that honor goes to rubies, but they are the hardest. The illusion of diamond scarcity and its instant association with the concepts of romance and affluence can be traced back to a successful meeting in New York between Harry Oppenheimer and the president of N.W. Ayer & Son, Gerold M. Lauck, in September 1938.

Diamond discovery's are akin to finding new oild fields every year, yet the industry keeps a tight lid on this fact. Thus keeping the sense of power and status with this "rock" in check.

Kama wrote: »

But to claim that we have infinite resources on earth is just incoherent. Physics is not your friend. Start with thermodynamics, and go from there, would be my advice.

Sorry who are you? What do you know about these fields?

Kama wrote: »

Crack that, and you may be taken seriously - or shot by an oil company, or bought out by Steorn...

Steorn's ORBO device needs to be taken seriously, and like I told you earlier, its only a matter of time before a practical application needs to be found for it, but its not impossible. They have proved that a net gain in energy can be achived by put some in... which ironically defys the statement that energy cant be created or destroyed, which they have not denied. They say that the energy gained from the experiment is coming from somewhere they can't explain yet.... this is up to the mathematicians, who may be able to prove the existance of dark matter.

Kama

I'm really not sure that you actually want to discuss any of the ideas you are bringing up, especially as they relate to political theory. Boards.ie is a site for discussion, and this subforum is for political theory. If you don't want to discuss the ideas, you are in the wrong place.


Shortshort answers, in no particular order:


Thermodynamics is about as real as anything gets.
Steorn failed. No one ever produced a working perpetual motion machine.

Computers have programmers.
And computers make mistakes.

Science isn't a fairy-godmother.
We got to the moon by understanding physical constraints, not pretending they would go away.

'Brainy' people don't necessarily make good decisions.
Scientists don't necessarily make good managers.

I walk or take a bike whenever possible.
I used ride a horse when younger, but I live in the city now.

There is a rich elite in the world.
You are a part of it.

Politics is a process by which groups make decisions.
If you want to produce a better world, you will need a better politics.

silverharp

Kama wrote: »

There's a view, related to ecological economics, of what a 'resource-based economy' would look like. The word 'resource' comes from the Latin resurgere, meaning 'to rise again'. Its the origin of the Enlish word 'resurgent'.

In this view, resources are replenishing sources. By not drawing down more than the 'interest rate' at which they grow, an economy based off these flows can be growing continuously off the proceeds. However, we tend not to do this; in some cases (oil) the time for it to replenish dwarfs our societies likely lifespan, while in others (forestry, fishing) we have tended to 'mine' the resource into extinction. Which is clearly suboptimal longterm, though it makes a lot of sense in short-term rationalities.

I'm quite in favour of a resource-based economy in this sense, btw. Increasing our share of solar capture with dense, diversified ecologies, and drawing down a sustainable level of this resource base, above the restock rate.

But as the man said, if you want to get to Galway, I wouldn't start from here...

its not an area I've read up on but it appears a very rigid approach when we live in a dynamic system. I think it was Jevons that wrote about "peak coal" in the 19thC , had the proposed system been implemented then there would have been an attempt to limit economic growth which in itself may have delayed the adoption of oil.

drunken_munky52

Kama wrote: »

I'm really not sure that you actually want to discuss any of the ideas you are bringing up, especially as they relate to political theory. Boards.ie is a site for discussion, and this subforum is for political theory. If you don't want to discuss the ideas, you are in the wrong place..

I opened this thread with the topic aimed at considering a world without politics, carrying the message of the Ziegeist movement into it. My entire ideolgy has been changed by ZM.

I have discussed my points... you try to dismiss them... I respond with counter statements, thats a discussion/debate. Now becuase you have led me off the track on the discussion with your questioning, you say I am going off the topic?

Kama wrote: »

Thermodynamics is about as real as anything gets.
Steorn failed. No one ever produced a working perpetual motion machine.

What has thermodynamics, a specific branch of physics got to do with anything raised? Steorn have not failed, last time I checked they are still operating and their CEO spoke at a seminar I attended a few weeks ago. And the statement that "No one ever produced a working perpetual motion machine" is totally false... it has been developed, now an application needs to be found for it. Steorn are going commercially live with ORBO later this year... it is a certainty that human ingenuity will prevail in the face of the sceptics, weather you say it will or not.

Kama wrote: »

Computers have programmers.
And computers make mistakes.

Computers can make thousands of decisions every second... politicians make decisions at a far slower rate and still manage to make a balls of the outcome! Fact is, computer's are far superior when it comes to management... ever heard of SCADA?

Kama wrote: »

Science isn't a fairy-godmother.
We got to the moon by understanding physical constraints, not pretending they would go away.

Yet we accomplished it is the face of an enormous technical challanges, becuase our explorer instincts have driven us time and time again to overcome these challanges.

Kama wrote: »

'Brainy' people don't necessarily make good decisions.
Scientists don't necessarily make good managers..

Do you know the difference between a fact and a truth? Science bases its findings on facts... politics bases its findings on truths (i.e. beliefs and ideology)

Kama wrote: »

I walk or take a bike whenever possible.
I used ride a horse when younger, but I live in the city now.

Technology is your bike that gets you to work faster than you would on your feet... so it overcomes a problem. Technology is your freind and you should have unquestioned faith in it.

Kama wrote: »

There is a rich elite in the world.
You are a part of it.

"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." - Jiddu Krisnamurti

Kama wrote: »

Politics is a process by which groups make decisions.
If you want to produce a better world, you will need a better politics.

Politics has repeatedly failed throughout history to solve problems... you do not have to look far for evidence of this. Its a talking shop, where so called "laws" are created in order to superglue fractures caused by polotics in the first place. It needs to be rejected and a new system which allows human evolution to make its journey, without been hindered by the viruses of religion and politics holding it back from rapid understanding and actions.

bonkey

It still seems somewhat misleading to me that the opening "pitch" for the argument seems to suggest to teh reader that they are amongst those who are hard done by in the current way of things.

In reality, the message underlying it all is that we are part of the problem and should change our lives (by joining this movement) so that others can gain from our largesse. However, the more I read the OP, the more I'm convinced that I'm supposed to feel a victim who would be joining this movement so that I gain from it....and not just some spiritual feeling of being a better person, but that the inequality in the world could change to my advantage.

This, I have to be honest, makes me immediately suspicious. If this movement is really about a better, fairer world...why do I have the feeling that its using somrthing less then full honesty and openness to convince me?

Nonetheless, that doesn't mean the idea is withoug merit...

What has thermodynamics, a specific branch of physics got to do with anything raised? Steorn have not failed, last time I checked they are still operating and their CEO spoke at a seminar I attended a few weeks ago. And the statement that "No one ever produced a working perpetual motion machine" is totally false... it has been developed, now an application needs to be found for it. Steorn are going commercially live with ORBO later this year... it is a certainty that human ingenuity will prevail in the face of the sceptics, weather you say it will or not.

Thermodynamics is the theory which is required to be fundamentally wrong for someone to have made a functioning perpetual motion machine. That's what it has to do with it.

Not only that, but the assertion that such a machine has been built is not demonstrably true. No-one has built such a machine and had it independantly verified, which is one of the key benchmarks set in teh modern world for accepting that things are what they seem to be.

Steorn refused to give out details of their technology for independant verification. They picked a group of scientists to perform said verification, requiring them to work behind closed doors, gagged by NDAs. That group unanimously concluded that Steorn failed to demonstrate its claims to them. Steorn also tried to give a public demonstration of their technology. This failed completely.

So what we have at this point is a claim from a company who have failed at every step to have any form of varification. They've never demonstrated it publically, nor managed to have it validated behind closed doors....let alone independantly.

The only argument against the notion of failure is that they insist they still have a working technology, and will bring it to market. Even if you believe that, I'd suggest you ask yourself one question: If they can neither validate nor demonstrate their technology, how can they possibly know that it works.

Fact is, computer's are far superior when it comes to management

Computers are suited to certain tasks...tasks we can define well enough to pre-determine the correct strategies for handling a certain amount of management. In order for a computer to be able to manage something efficiently, we need an efficient model which we want the computer to implement.

We don't have the models you want....nor the means to enforce compliance with them.

Do you know the difference between a fact and a truth? Science bases its findings on facts... politics bases its findings on truths (i.e. beliefs and ideology)

Don't you find it ironic that you're trying to knock belief and ideology, when they're the two pillars that underly the basis of ZM?
Similarly, you draw attention to the notion of science being based on fact, but defend Steorn who have supplied no facts (in the scientific sense) and yet seek to have us believe that core principles of physics are grossly incorrect.

Politics has repeatedly failed throughout history to solve problems...

People have failed to solve problems. THe problem does not lie with politics, but rather with the reason that politics exists - that being human nature.

Ultimately, ZM coudl succeed as a concept if human nature significantly changed. If, of course, human nature significantly changed, there would be no need for ZM, as the current system could also succeed as a concept.

Ostrom

drunken_munky52 wrote: »

I opened this thread with the topic aimed at considering a world without politics, carrying the message of the Ziegeist movement into it. My entire ideolgy has been changed by ZM.

I have discussed my points... you try to dismiss them... I respond with counter statements, thats a discussion/debate. Now becuase you have led me off the track on the discussion with your questioning, you say I am going off the topic?.

Your proposed alternatives are political by nature - suggesting an alternative process of resource allocation is to suggest a new political regime.

drunken_munky52 wrote: »

What has thermodynamics, a specific branch of physics got to do with anything raised? Steorn have not failed, last time I checked they are still operating and their CEO spoke at a seminar I attended a few weeks ago. And the statement that "No one ever produced a working perpetual motion machine" is totally false... it has been developed, now an application needs to be found for it. Steorn are going commercially live with ORBO later this year... it is a certainty that human ingenuity will prevail in the face of the sceptics, weather you say it will or not.

I think you lost most of us with the Steorn comment. Did you not refer to yourself as a scientist a few posts above? The application of theormodynamic principles in ecological economics is the most significant development in economic thought of the 20th century (I'm sure some will disagree). Roegen challenged Solow's growth model on the basis of material input; systems theorists from Parsons to Lovelock have placed entropy and eventual heat death at the centre of prudent pessimist debates (e.g. limits to growth onwards). Thermodynamics has everything to do with your proposal - they are intrinsic characteristics of any system.

drunken_munky52 wrote: »

Computers can make thousands of decisions every second... politicians make decisions at a far slower rate and still manage to make a balls of the outcome! Fact is, computer's are far superior when it comes to management... ever heard of SCADA?

The instructions will come from a particular social and political context - you dont seem to realise that a value-free independent machine is impossible.

drunken_munky52 wrote: »

Do you know the difference between a fact and a truth? Science bases its findings on facts... politics bases its findings on truths (i.e. beliefs and ideology)

Scientific study and the definition of validity is also subject to the same ideological convention

drunken_munky52 wrote: »

Technology is your bike that gets you to work faster than you would on your feet... so it overcomes a problem. Technology is your freind and you should have unquestioned faith in it.

No, we shouldn't

drunken_munky52 wrote: »

Politics has repeatedly failed throughout history to solve problems... you do not have to look far for evidence of this. Its a talking shop, where so called "laws" are created in order to superglue fractures caused by polotics in the first place. It needs to be rejected and a new system which allows human evolution to make its journey, without been hindered by the viruses of religion and politics holding it back from rapid understanding and actions.

This 'new system' will be a political system - am I correct in saying that you dont consider it as such because the objective value-free machines will makes all of our decisions?

drunken_munky52

This possibility is, of course, very difficult for most humans to consider, for we have been conditioned by society to think that crime, corruption and dishonesty is "the way it is" and that there will always be people who want to abuse, hurt and take advantage of others.

The reality is that we live in a society that produces Scarcity. The consequence of this scarcity is that human beings must behave in self preserving ways, even if it means they have to cheat and steal in order to get what they want.

This simple reality has been grossly overlooked and today people primitively think that competition, greed and corruption are "hardwired" elements of human behavior and, in turn, we must have prisons, police and hence a hierarchy of differential control in order for society to deal with these "tendencies". This is totally illogical and false.

The bottom line is that in order to change things for the better fundamentally, you must begin to address root causes.

It is time to stop the patchwork. It is time to begin a new social approach which is updated to present day knowledge. Sadly, society today is still largely based on outmoded, superstitious dispositions and resolutions.

It is also important to point out that there are no utopias or endings. All evidence points to perpetual change on all levels.

Since people's identities become associated with the doctrines of a Country, Religion or Business ethic, it often becomes very difficult for a person to change, for his or her identity has become combined with the ideologies which have been imposed upon them.

We must break this cycle, for it paralyses our growth not only as individuals, but as a society.

silverharp

drunken_munky52 wrote: »

This possibility is, of course, very difficult for most humans to consider, for we have been conditioned by society to think that crime, corruption and dishonesty is "the way it is" and that there will always be people who want to abuse, hurt and take advantage of others...........

wasnt communism built on the idea of creating a new man? Any system of thought that requires people to cast off their old way of thinking in such a fundamental way is either a cult or will require a year 0. Your points about scarcity make no sense, have you any links to readable material to expand on some of thes thoughts?

drunken_munky52

silverharp wrote: »

wasnt communism built on the idea of creating a new man? Any system of thought that requires people to cast off their old way of thinking in such a fundamental way is either a cult or will require a year 0.

Once we understand that the integrity of our personal existences are directly related to the integrity of the earth, life and all other people, we then have our path predefined for us. In turn, once we realise that it is science, technology, hence human creativity are what create progress in our lives, we are then able to recognise what our true priorities are for social, personal growth and progress.

It is not the right of any person to tell another what to believe, for no human has a full understanding of anything. However, if we pay attention to the natural processes of life, we then see how we can align with nature and thus our path becomes more clear.

"We must become the change we want to see in the world".
-Mohandas Gandhi.

silverharp wrote: »

Your points about scarcity make no sense, have you any links to readable material to expand on some of thes thoughts?

If NATO had utilized the money that it spent on military systems for the last 40 years and put it toward developing clean sources of energy, the world would be a far better, safer, and cleaner place for all of humankind, with less scarcity of the energy we don't have today.

bonkey

drunken_munky52 wrote: »

If NATO had utilized the money that it spent on military systems for the last 40 years and put it toward developing clean sources of energy, the world would be a far better, safer, and cleaner place for all of humankind, with less scarcity of the energy we don't have today.

Alternately, someone else would have taken advantage of the fact that NATO didn't exist, and would have taken over the defenceless nations which had no spending on defence...and the money would have been spent funding the lifestyle of our new overlords and masters.

Of course...that wouldn't have happened, right? No-one would ever take advantage of rich, defenceless nations.

Kama

Since I'm feeling this all go one way, and the cry of 'but what would this mean, in anything other than random aspirational sloganism?' has been heard across the hills and valleys....

Apropos of Resource Economies, without the Orbo:

We are farmer scientists - working to develop a world class research center for decentralization technologies using open source permaculture and technology to work together for providing basic needs and self replicating the entire operation at the cost of scrap metal. We seek societal transformation through interconnected self-sufficient villages and homes.


Our business model focuses on

1. Open source
2. Lifetime design
3. Resource based economy creation
4. Distributive economics - Open Business Model (OBM)

I'm quite for engineers and permaculturalists doing things with little capital;
an NGO I'm involved with works on slightly similar lines: 'how can we effect change in outcomes, assuming near-zero conventional resources?'

silverharp

drunken_munky52 wrote: »

If NATO had utilized the money that it spent on military systems for the last 40 years and put it toward developing clean sources of energy, the world would be a far better, safer, and cleaner place for all of humankind, with less scarcity of the energy we don't have today.

I'm far from wanting to defend the status quo as the balance between the individual and the state is too lopsided in favour of the state. The average US citizen would not write a cheque to fund the US military to the extent it does when the gov has unlimited borrowing and taxing ability. The average would also not pay to enforce laws against victimless crimes (eg drug laws)
However there will always be scarcity, so I believe you are overplaying your hand , I argue from the point of view that surpluses should be largely left with the people who produce them as they are in a better place to deploy them then any central commitee ever will.

drunken_munky52

bonkey wrote: »

Alternately, someone else would have taken advantage of the fact that NATO didn't exist, and would have taken over the defenceless nations which had no spending on defence...and the money would have been spent funding the lifestyle of our new overlords and masters.

Of course...that wouldn't have happened, right? No-one would ever take advantage of rich, defenceless nations.

OK. I will go again, as I was just trying to put things in prespective before I have to read you possibly saying that conflict is hamun nature. I will make that statement you quoted again, with one word changed.

If we had utilized the money that it spent on military systems for the last 40 years and put it toward developing clean sources of energy, the world would be a far better, safer, and cleaner place for all of humankind, with less scarcity of the energy we don't have today.

BTW, human beings are not good or bad... they are running, forever changing compositions of the life experiences that influence them. The "quality" of a human being (if there was such a thing) is directly related to the upbringing and thus belief systems they have been conditioned into.

silverharp wrote: »

I'm far from wanting to defend the status quo as the balance between the individual and the state is too lopsided in favour of the state. The average US citizen would not write a cheque to fund the US military to the extent it does when the gov has unlimited borrowing and taxing ability. The average would also not pay to enforce laws against victimless crimes (eg drug laws)
However there will always be scarcity, so I believe you are overplaying your hand , I argue from the point of view that surpluses should be largely left with the people who produce them as they are in a better place to deploy them then any central commitee ever will.

Social problems result from scarcity. When a few nations control most of the world's resources, there are going to be international disputes no matter how many laws or treaties are signed. If we wish to end war, crime, hunger, poverty, territorial disputes, and nationalism, we must work towards a future in which all resources are accepted as common heritage for all human kind.

Our problems cannot be solved in a society based on money, waste, and human exploitation. Today, money is used to regulate the economy for the benefit of the few who control the financial wealth of nations. Unless the underlying causes of planned obsolescence, environmental neglect, and outrageous military expenditures are addressed, we are bound to fail. Treaties, blockades, boycotts, and the like used in the past have not worked.

Kama

drunken_munky wrote:

BTW, human beings are not good or bad... they are running, forever changing compositions of the life experiences that influence them. The "quality" of a human being (if there was such a thing) is directly related to the upbringing and thus belief systems they have been conditioned into.

Assuming this as true:

How do we instil 'correct' belief systems into people?
Before this, how can we initially determine which belief systems are correct?

How can we tell if someones Belief System is...BS?
And how can we know if our own Belief System contains BS?

If we wish to end war, crime, hunger, poverty, territorial disputes, and nationalism, we must work towards a future in which all resources are accepted as common heritage for all human kind.

I tend to agree, to a point. But I remain without any idea how ZM believes this essentially political aim can be achieved, besides the appeal to the the cybernetic deus ex machina. Who gets what, when, and how, remains a politically-loaded question.

The idea of management of Commons is quite topical, with the Bank of Sweden prize being shared by Elinor Ostrom on how successful common-pool resources are managed as institutions, what rules evolve and work.

But a non-tragic Commons does need to be managed, precisely because of being a scarce, rivalrous resource. And this management, invariably, means some form of politics, whether consensual or violently Clausewitzian.


There are two problems ZM needs an answer to.
Both are coordination problems:

One political - how do you organise people and their preferences, if not through a form of politics?

One economic - how are goods to be allocated, or how can 'need' be objectively determined?